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William Pynchon Leaves Connecticut in 1637 and Takes Springfield With Him

Springfield, Mass., and the rest of Western Massachusetts, might well belong to Connecticut today if William Pynchon had not decided to leave Connecticut and join with Massachusetts in an acrimonious dispute in 1637.

William Pynchon, one of the original founders of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, arrived with John Winthrop in 1630. Rather than staying by the coast, however, Pynchon moved inland. He bought land in what was called Agawam from the American Indians and named it Springfield after his home in England.

Out of Step

William Pynchon marched somewhat out of step with his Puritan comrades in more than just the fine points of religion. He had a more pragmatic approach to business than a typical Puritan. He believed in trading with the local Indians, not fighting with them.

As one of his first acts when coming to Springfield, he made a deal with the local Indians. He procured land and compensated them for it. Then he made agreements to allow the Indians to continue to use the land for hunting and other purposes. Further, he agreed to restrict his pigs on the side of the river where the Indians grew corn, so they couldn’t invade their cornfields.

Puritans burning the book by William Pynchon, The Meritorious Price of Our Redemption.

Pynchon’s fellow settlers in Connecticut and Massachusetts had more fractious relations with the Indians — perhaps because they didn’t live among so many of them.

Springfield was controlled by a government made up of the river towns of Hartford, Windsor, Wethersfield and Springfield. Then that government declared war on the Pequot Indians.

The Pequot War

This left William Pynchon in a precarious position. Springfield, which only had a handful of settlers, could expect no defense in case of Indian attack. Nevertheless William Pynchon received a war tax bill. When he balked at paying, the authorities at Hartford hauled him before them.

In the spring of 1638, when the snow receded enough for William Pynchon to reach Hartford, he answered the charges (and probably paid the tax). While there, the local government gave him a monopoly on the fur trade in Springfield. The news did not sit well with Pynchon. He would have had a virtual monopoly on it anyway, and the new designation meant he had to pay a tax on every pelt he bought from Indians.

William Pynchon

The river towns to the south of Pynchon also had a food shortage that year, the war having limited the colony’s ability to focus on growing corn. So the magistrates directed Pynchon to procure 500 bushels of corn from the Indians near Springfield at five shillings per bushel. What Pynchon discovered, he would later report, was that the Indians wanted eight shillings. He was not authorized to pay that price.

The next move by the river towns was to send another man, John Mason, to Springfield to procure the corn. Mason was a hero to his Connecticut countrymen, having led a deadly rout against Pequots at Mystic the year before. The Indians did not hold him in such high esteem, though they were not Pequots.

According to William Pynchon, he tried to broker a deal between Mason and the Indians, but the Indians would not part with corn at the price offered.

Back to Hartford

Returning to Hartford, John Mason charged that William Pynchon held up any deal in hopes of profiting himself. The Puritan governments believed that the public good outweighed private profit and fixed the prices of essential commodities. To their thinking, the price for corn should be, if anything, lower than it had been in the past.

The Hartford authorities again summoned William Pynchon to answer charges of “unfaithfull dealing in the trade of corne” and for ignoring his duties as a magistrate of the colony. They fined Pynchon 40 bushels of corn for failing to deliver the Indian corn at the price of six shillings per bushel. The river towns then sent Mason again to Springfield, this time with a band of armed men, and threatened the Indians if they did not sell corn. The Indians agreed, but at a price of 12 shillings per bushel.

Despite Pynchon’s protests, the Connecticut authorities went so far as to write to the church at Roxbury to undermine his reputation there. Later that year, the leadership of Massachusetts and Connecticut gathered to settle questions over the boundary of the two colonies,. Then, William Pynchon declared Springfield belonged to Massachusetts.

Banned in Boston

Despite some protests from the river towns, Massachusetts officially took Springfield by 1642. Pynchon, meanwhile, did not live happily ever after in Massachusetts. He continued to chafe against Puritan practices and beliefs. In 1650 he published a religious tract — The Meritorious Price of Our Redemption — the first book banned in Massachusetts. Many would follow. (Read more about his banned book here.)

William Pynchon was accused of heresy. At the same time, the colonies were beginning to get whipped up over witchcraft. Sensing the dire mood, Pynchon gave title to his lands to his son. He departed for England in 1652, where he lived the life of a wealthy man for the next 21 years.

Thanks to: William Pynchon, Founder of Springfield; Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society. This story was updated in 2022.

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Six French Place Names in Six New England States

French place names reveal much about the history of a city or town. They reflect the great historical events that took place at the time residents settled on a name. They may have named their town when a popular king took the throne, or during the French struggle for liberty, or right after the American Revolution, or during westward expansion.

You’re far more likely to find French place names the closer you get to the border of Canada. Still, the number of French place names in New England doesn’t truly reflect the region’s French heritage.

Vermont, of course, comes from the French for ‘green mountain’ (vert mont), and 23.9 percent of its population claims French ancestry. But only about a dozen of the state’s 255 municipalities have a French place name.

Vermont is only the third most Franco-American state in the Union. New Hampshire comes in second. Maine, with 25 percent of its population claiming French ancestry, ranks No. 1. The state has two dozen towns with French place names, and the state Legislature once claimed (probably wrongly) that ‘Maine’ came from the French province of the same name.

Here, then, are six New England municipalities with French place names, one in each state. If you know of another with a story worth repeating, please share in the comments section.

Orange, Conn.

Orange Congregational Church

Orange, Conn., initially belonged to the Algonquian Indians until 1637, when they sold it to the Rev. Peter Prudden. The price? Some coats and blankets, hatchets and hoes, a kettle, knives and a dozen small mirrors.

Prudden, educated at Cambridge University in England, came to Massachusetts as part of the Great Puritan Migration. He preached in Wethersfield, Conn., for a while. Then he joined a group of New Haven Colony settlers in Milford and was ordained pastor of the church in 1639.

When Prudden died in 1656, his survivors buried him in his garden, which became the Milford town cemetery. His widow, Joanna Boyse Prudden, married the first English mayor of New York City.

William of Orange

Thirty years after Prudden died, the last Roman Catholic king of England, James II, consolidated the New England colonies. He appointed the hated Edmund Andros as governor general of the Dominion of New England. Andros tried to seize Connecticut’s charter, but failed because a militia captain hid it in a large white oak tree, known forever after as the Charter Oak.

In 1689, much to the joy and relief of New England’s Puritans, William of Orange deposed James II. The staunchly Protestant William, who had inherited the French principality of Orange from his father, was James’ son-in-law and nephew. The colonists sent Andros back to England.

The popular new king gave the village of Orange its name. It belonged to Milford until 1822, when residents formed the Town of Orange. In 1921, rural Orange separated from urban West Haven.

Orange Center Historic District includes 42 historically significant structures, including the Orange Congregational Church. They form a ‘cohesive village of well-preserved buildings and their surroundings that convey a strong sense of the area’s historic appearance,’ according to the National Register of Historic Places nomination form.

Meetinghouse Lane, Orange Center Road, Schoolhouse Land, Tyler City Road.

Calais, Maine

Acadians first settled the region on both sides of the St. John River, so it’s natural that Calais, Maine, and St. Stephen, New Brunswick, should have a close friendship. Calais has three international crossings over the St. Croix River to St. Stephen.

Calais from St. Stephen

So friendly were the two towns that the British military gave St. Stephen gunpowder to defend itself against Americans during the War of 1812. St. Stephen instead gave the gunpowder to Calais for its July 4^th celebration.

The townspeople named Calais for the French city in 1809 to honor France’s help to the American colonies during the Revolutionary War.

Calais Avenue about 1905

Calais didn’t really get going as a town until the 1820s, when shipbuilding and lumber brought growth and prosperity. Between 1810 and 1850, the town’s population grew tenfold, to 4,749. By 1840, Calais was the second busiest port in Maine next to Bangor. Many successful Calais businesspeople built fine homes in the city during its heyday.

The Calais Residential Historic District comprises 15 acres of handsome 19^th century homes in a variety of architectural styles.

Calais Residential Historic District: Calais Avenue and Main Street From Calais Avenue To Swan Street

Orleans, Mass.

the Duke of Orleans

Orleans, on Cape Cod’s elbow, has had its share of military assaults. The British captured the town twice during the American Revolution, and the Orleans militia skirmished with a British warship trying to dock at Rock Harbor during the War of 1812. And German U-boats shelled Orleans during World War I.

The town split off from Eastham in 1797, when memories of the British occupation still stung.

Isaac Snow, a descendant of Mayflower Pilgrim Stephen Hopkins, supposedly suggested the French place name for the new town. The British had captured Snow during the American Revolution and confined him aboard a prison ship in England. Snow then escaped to France, where he more than likely learned about the popular Louis Philippe Joseph, Duke of Orleans. The duke, though one of the richest men in France, supported the French revolutionary cause.

CG 36500

Isaac Snow’s family opened its first store in Orleans in 1887. The Snow family still runs Snow’s, where you can probably find whatever you need.

The town also harbors a motorboat listed on the National Register of Historic Places, CG36500, used in the courageous rescue of 31 Pendleton crewmembers in 1952.

CG 36500 is berthed at Rock Harbor n Rock Harbor Rd., Orleans, Mass.; Snow’s, 22 Main St., Orleans, Mass.

Fremont, N.H.

Fremont, N.H., took its French place name from the illegitimate son of a French-Canadian schoolteacher. John C. Fremont also happened to be a military hero and the Republican Party’s first candidate for president of the United States.

Fremont, N.H., meeting house

Fremont’s mother was the daughter of a wealthy Virginia planter. At 17 she married a well-to-do army major in his 60s. The major hired a Canadian immigrant, Charles Fremon, to tutor his young wife. They fell in love and ran away to Savannah, Ga., where John Fremon was born out of wedlock. The major refused to divorce John’s mother, so she could not marry his father.

When Charles Fremon died, John Fremont and his mother lived in poverty and disgrace. He compensated with pride and ambition.

During his lifetime he fought in the Mexican War, rose to the rank of major general, explored the West, gained and lost a fortune, served in the U.S. Senate from California and ran for president in 1856. He also met and married Jessie Benton, daughter of the powerful U.S. senator from Missouri, Thomas Hart Benton.

John Fremont

Benton earned immense popularity for his support of western expansion. In 1840, the town of Coventry, N.H., decided to change its name to Benton in honor of the senator. Fourteen years later, a town called Poplin, N.H., decided to change its name to Fremont after the future presidential candidate and senator’s son-in-law

Today the town takes justifiable pride in its 1800 Meetinghouse – and for being home to the stunningly awful all-girl group, The Shaggs.

Fremont Meeting House 464 Main Street , Fremont, N.H.

Lafayette Village, R.I.

When the Marquis de Lafayette made his triumphal tour of the United States in 1824, enthusiastic Rhode Islanders renamed a village in North Kingstown after him. Previously, people had given it a less glamorous name: the North Kingstown Cotton Factory.

Lafayette in 1825

Lafayette, though, remained little more than a French place name for a cotton mill, a smattering of houses and an unusually wide road. The road had been ordered by the Rhode Island colony in 1703 so farmers could bring their goods to the port of Wickford. The road had to be as straight as possible and 160 feet wide to allow grazing for livestock.

Today, the National Register of Historic Places lists Lafayette Village as a monument to Robert Rodman, a paternalistic textile manufacturer in the tradition of southern Rhode Island.

Rodman, a relative of the Hazard manufacturing family in nearby Peace Dale, began making wool textiles in Lafayette in the 1840s. He incorporated as the Rodman Manufacturing Co. in 1883 and employed 500 workers by 1900. The Rodman family still owned the company into the late 1940s, when it ceased operation.

One of the Rodman mansions in Lafayette. Google maps photo.

The company sold St. Nicolas Doeskin to growing markets in the south and west. In 1876, “one supposes a celebratory mood as Rodman packed his entire family, children and grandchildren off to the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia, where the doeskin, a luxury fabric with nap, won a medal,” according to Lafayette Village’s nomination for the National Register of Historic Places.

Shortly after the Centennial, Rodman bought the engineering marvel of the day, a Corliss steam engine, to power his textile machinery. In 1877 he built the vast brick mill that still stands.

Rodman also built a mansion for himself (now a patio furniture store) and three more for his children, a church, boarding houses and workers cottages.

The paternalistic Rodmans stayed within the community, made up of local Yankees who in the 1970s remembered it as ‘one big family’ and ‘all English.’ The Rodmans sponsored the Lafayette Cornet Band, magic shows, games and pottery classes to entertain the mill workers – and, no doubt, to distract them from any union organizers who might be prowling around.

For more photos of Lafayette in the 1970s, click here.

Lafayette Historic District, Properties bordering Ten Rod Road from Wickford Junction to the culvert east of 935 Ten Rod Road and side streets, North Kingstown, R.I.

Barre, Vt.

Barre, Vt., took its name from an Irishman of French Huguenot ancestry who gave the Sons of Liberty their name.

Isaac Barre

Isaac Barre, the son of Dublin’s high sheriff, served the British Army with distinction before representing Chipping Wycombe in Parliament. He had a long, colorful parliamentary career, during which he vigorously opposed the taxation of the American colonies. While addressing Parliament, he coined the phrase ‘Sons of Liberty.’

During his military career, Barre fought at the Battle of Quebec and gathered around the dying general James Wolfe. John Gouldsbury, the earliest settler of Barre, also fought at the Battle of Quebec under Wolfe.

Until 1788, roving bands of Indians were the only inhabitants of the area described as ‘primeval forests, granite hills and green valleys.’ The first settlers named it Wildersborough, but the residents didn’t like it and the name didn’t stick.

According to one story, the settlement’s selectmen decided the person who contributed the most to a meeting house could rename the town. For 64 pounds, Ezekiel Wheeler got to name the town Barre.

Socialist Labor Hall

According to another story, two men from Massachusetts put forward their preferred names at a Town Meeting. Both Captain Joseph Thompson of Holden and Jonathon Sherman of Barre wanted to name it after their former towns. They decided to fight it out in a barn, and Sherman won.

Barre grew into a center of granite cutting shortly after the War of 1812. The work attracted a diverse group of European immigrants, including Italian anarchists and members of the International Workers of the World. In 1916 and in 1929 Barre residents elected a Socialist Party candidate as mayor.

The old Socialist Labor Party Hall still stands, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 2000.

Socialist Labor Party Hall, 46 Granite St., Barre City, Vt.

Images for French place names: Fremont Meeting House, By John Phelan – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=24513389; Socialist Labor Hall By John Phelan – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=35779862; Calais By P199 – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=18061218; Orange church By The original uploader was Staib at English Wikipedia – Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons., CC BY 2.5, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=34580770

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Six of New England’s Most Famous Writers Houses

New England is dotted with famous writers houses, a testament to the Puritan ideal of literacy and the region’s many publishing houses.

Some writers, like Rudyard Kipling, were born elsewhere, but wrote prolifically while living in New England. Some, like Robert Frost, made use of their surroundings in their work.

It wasn’t easy to select just six writers houses, one for each state. Some are blindingly obvious, while others may surprise you. All can be visited.

If you know of writers houses worth mentioning, please share them in the comments section.

Mark Twain House

Hartford had the highest per-capita income in the United States in 1871 when newlyweds Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and his wife Olivia moved there to be near his publisher.

Of Hartford, Mark Twain said, “Of all the beautiful towns it has been my fortune to see, this is the chief… You do not know what beauty is if you have not been here.”

In 1873, Twain began building the house described as ‘part Mississippi steamboat, part medieval fortress, part cuckoo clock.’ He lived in the lavish, Gothic Revival mansion for 17 years, the happiest of his life. It was in that house that he wrote The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur’s Court.

Mark Twain in 1871

He also socialized with the many authors who lived nearby, including Harriet Beecher Stowe, William Dean Howells and Thomas Bailey Aldrich.

Twain made some bad investments and in 1891 moved to Europe where the cost of living was cheaper. He lost more money in 1893 and went on the lecture circuit to earn it back. “The lack of money is the root of all evil,” he wrote.

Daughter Susy died in 1896, and the Clemens couldn’t bear to return to the house. After it was sold, it became a library, an apartment house and a school. The house was going to be torn down, but preservationists saved it in 1929.

The Mark Twain House is now a museum open to visitors.

351 Farmington Ave., Hartford.

Wadsworth-Longfellow House

The Wadsworth Longfellow House in 1910

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, like most Mainers, knew a good story when he heard one. And while his poems have been criticized for pandering to popular sentiment, they were never boring.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Longfellow’s best known home is probably in Cambridge, Mass. There he lived in the same house Gen. George Washington had headquartered while commanding the Continental Army.

The Wadsworth-Longfellow House in Portland, Maine, can lay greater claim to inspiring Longfellow. Portland was where he was born and grew up before heading off to Bowdoin College. And it was where he first would have heard many of the stories that he later immortalized in his poems about New England figures such as Miles Standish and Paul Revere.

Today the house is open as a museum in the heart of Portland.

489 Congress St, Portland.

The Homestead

The Homestead

It isn’t easy to select just one of Massachusetts’ many writers houses, but we chose the one the author rarely left: Emily Dickinson’s The Homestead in Amherst, Mass.

Retouched daguerrotype of Emily Dickinson

The Homestead was built in 1813 by Emily’s grandfather, Samuel Fowler Dickinson. He lost his money and sold the house, but his eldest son Edward bought half of it back in 1830. Emily was born in The Homestead on Dec. 10, 1830.

Edward Dickinson had his own money troubles. He sold his share of the Homestead and moved his family away for 15 years. By 1855 he had earned enough to buy back the whole house. In 1856, Edward began building The Evergreens next door as a wedding gift to his son Austin.

Emily became increasingly reclusive and started to communicate with visitors through closed doors, though she tended the flower garden and visited her brother next door. After she died in 1886, her sister Lavinia found her poems in a locked chest. Austin’s mistress, Mabel Loomis Todd, along with family friend Thomas Wentworth Higginson, edited Emily’s poems and took them to a publisher.

Emily Dickinson’s house was home to Lavinia until she died in 1899. Eventually it was sold to the trustees of Amherst College and used for college housing. In 2003, it was combined with The Evergreens as the Emily Dickinson Museum.

Visitors can take guided or self-guided tours through the Emily Dickinson Museum from April through December.

280 Main Street, Amherst, Mass.

Robert Frost Farm

The Robert Frost Farm

Travelers passing through Derry, N.H., can be forgiven for looking at the passing countryside and wondering, ‘Whose woods are these? I think I know.’ For they may be looking at the Robert Frost Farm.

Robert Frost

New Hampshire’s most famous poet lived on his farm in Derry from 1900 to 1911. The farm was a gift of Frost’s father, and the young poet struggled financially while he lived there. He began building a reputation, working the farm by day, writing by night and teaching at nearby Pinkerton Academy.

Frost, it turned out, was a horrible farmer but a wonderful poet. His Derry years shaped many of the works that would later win him fame for their crisp depictions of the New England spirit.

Frost famously read his work at the inauguration of John F. Kennedy and would die at age 88 before the president was assassinated.

The Frost Farm is now open to visitors who may walk the grounds. They can wonder which tree was the inspiration for Tree at My Window and scores of other poems that Frost wrote during his time in New Hampshire.

122 Rockingham Rd, Derry, N.H.

Fort Adams State Park

Fort Adams State Park just barely qualifies as one of the writers houses.

It’s easy imagine that Newport in its heyday might form a lasting impression on a teenage boy arriving in the city from the west, out for the first time on his own.

That certainly was the case with playwright and novelist Thornton Wilder. Wilder bunked in the barracks at Fort Adams, serving for three months in the Coastal Artillery Corps, before he headed off to college and on to a successful career.

Thornton Wilder, Yale graduation photo

The plays Our Town and The Skin of Our Teeth earned Wilder Pulitzer Prizes, and his novel The Bridge of San Luis Rey won the National Book Award.

For his final novel, Wilder let his mind wander back to 1926 Newport. Theophilius North was his last novel. It chronicled the whimsical adventures of a young man navigating through all strata of Newport society, solving problems for others along the way. Humorous and light, critics praised Wilder’s ability to retain a positive outlook even as his life was winding down.

Wilder would die two years later at his home in Hampden, Conn.

Fort Adams, where he had his short Rhode Island stay, is part of Fort Adams State Park at the mouth of Newport Harbor.

90 Fort Adams Drive, Newport, R.I.

Naulakha

Rudyard Kipling wrote some of his best work while living in Dummerston, Vt.: Captains Courageous, the Jungle Books and a book of poetry that included Gunga Din and Mandalay.

Why Vermont for the British-Indian writer? He loved the fall foliage, the snow and the sound of sleigh bells, and his new wife Caroline Balestier had grown up in Vermont. In 1893, they built a South Asian Indian bungalow in the American Shingle style next to her brother’s home. They called it Naulakha after a book he wrote about a precious Indian jewel. .

The house, which is only one room deep, has views of the Connecticut River and Mount Monadnock.

Kipling in his library at Naulakha

Kipling doted on his two young daughters and wrote prolifically in the seclusion of Vermont. British writer Arthur Conan Doyle brought his golf clubs for a visit and taught Kipling to play the game.

A feud with his brother-in-law drove the Kiplings from Vermont in 1896. The Holbrook family for many years owned Naulakha. Today Naulakha is owned by The Landmark Trust USA, which rents it out to vacationers for about $450 a night.

707 Kipling Road, Dummerston, Vt.

Images: Mark Twain house By Cliff – Flickr: Mark Twain House and Museum, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16488910; Robert Frost Farm By grongar – Robert Frost HouseUploaded by Vux, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=13817084; Fort Adams By David (dbking) from Washington, DC, USA – Flickr, CC BY 2.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=1468534.

This story about writers houses was updated in 2021.

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Four Rice Boys Captured by Indians in 1704; Three Rice Boys Decide To Stay

On a hot August day in 1704, the Rice boys were working with their fathers to spread flax in a field in what is now Westborough, Mass. Suddenly a party of about 10 Indians rushed down from the wooded hill nearby and seized five of the Rice boys.

The Indians bashed 5-year-old Nahor Rice’s brains out on a rock. They carried off four others, aged 7 to 10, while everyone else escaped to the garrison house of Thomas Rice.

Queen Anne’s War had broken out, one of the French and Indian wars fought over domination of North America. During the war, French and Indians raided frontier towns in New England. Six months before Indians captured the Rice boys, the raid on Deerfield, Mass., left 47 dead and 112 captured. The Indians marched the captives through the snow to Canada.

The Rice boys mirrored the fate of the Deerfield captives. Some were ransomed, or redeemed, through the efforts of their families and Dutch traders. Others, like 7-year-old Eunice Williams, assimilated with the Indians and refused to return to their homes.

Caughnawaga Indians at Camp, oil painting by Cornelius Krieghoff

The Thomas Rice Boys

Asher Rice, 10, and his brother Adonijah, 8, were sons of Thomas Rice.

Silas, 9, and Timothy, 7, were the sons of Edmund Rice, a second cousin of Thomas Rice.

The Indians took the Rice boys to Kahnawake territory, a mission in Canada where the Jesuits had converted the Iroquois to Catholicism.

The Rice family tried desperately to redeem their boys. They enlisted the help of a Col. Lydius, a Dutch merchant in Albany.

Thomas sold his home to pay for his sons’ ransom. Asher, the oldest, had the hardest time assimilating with the Indians. Four years after his capture, Asher returned home, ‘so broken by the shock he had received at the time of his seizure that he never fully recovered from it.’

Plaque near Westborough High School, marking spot near the Rice boys’ capture.

He developed eccentricities. Wrote Westborough historian Herman Packard De Forest,

“He spent a great deal of effort in making a gristmill on a new plan, so that the upper stone should be fixed, while the lower one revolved. This, he insisted, was the only natural way, for in the human mouth, which was evidently the original corn-mill, it was the lower jaw that did the work.”

Asher Rice retained some of the habits he picked up during his four years in captivity, but he dreaded the return of the Indians. Throughout his life he built stockades, long after the danger had passed. His father built him a house in 1720, and he married and had a son.

His brother Adonijah was never redeemed, but he did leave the Indians at some point. Adonijah was given the Indian name Asaundugooton. He married a French woman, then a Dutch woman, and owned a farm near Montreal.

The Edmund Rice Boys

Iroqouis Indians in 1914.

Silas and Timothy grew up with the Indians and completely forgot how to speak English. Their father tried to redeem the boys, traveling to Canada in 1707. He met with no success. The boys preferred to stay with their Indian families.

Edmund Rice died in 1726, the same year he wrote a will that said, “if Almighty Power should work that deliverance for my two sons Silas and Timothy out of their captivity, which we indeed of ourselves can have little prospect of, and bring them home, they shall receive five pounds each.”

Timothy was adopted by a Kahnawake chief who had been converted to Catholicism.

Rev. Ebenezer Parkman, a Westborough minister, recorded Timothy’s history in 1769.

“Timothy had much recommended himself to the Indians by his own superior talents; his penetration, courage, strength & warlike spirit; for which he was much celebrated,” wrote Parkman.

His name was Oughtzorongoughton.

Return Home

The youngest of the Rice boys, Timothy, became a Kahnawake clan chief and married an Indian woman, Catherine Osennenhawe. They had at least one son, named Pierre.

Eventually, in 1740, Timothy returned to his home in Westborough with an interpreter, a Mr. Tarbell, another colonist captured by Indians from Groton, Mass.

Gov. Jonathan Belcher

“They arrived here Sept. 15th. They view’d the house where Mr. Rice dwelt, & the Place from whence the children above spoke of, were captivated; of both which he retained a clear Remembrance; as he did likewise of Several elderly persons who were then living,” wrote DeForest.

Massachusetts Gov. Jonathan Belcher sent for Tarbell and Rice, and they visited him in Boston.

Later when the American Revolution broke out, Timothy was said to be influential in keeping the Indians from joining the English during the American Revolution. He died at the age of 80 in 1777.

Silas Rice married an Indian girl named Marie Tsiakohawi; he took the name Jacques Tannahorens. They had five children. A granddaughter married the grandson of Eunice Williams.

According to one source, in 1900 Silas had at least 1,350 descendants, a large portion of all the Iroquois in Canada and the United States.

This story about the Rice boys was updated in 2023. The image of the historic marker: By Innapoy – I took this photo, CC BY 3.0, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?curid=28895668

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New Hampshire’s Constitutional Convention Creates a New Nation

In February 1788, George Washington was staying close to home at Mount Vernon, anxiously awaiting news from New Hampshire. The state’s constitutional convention was to be held on February 13, and two of his friends were running it: John Langdon and his former general John Sullivan.

Washington had been relieved to hear that on Feb. 3, 1788, Massachusetts became the sixth state to ratify the Constitution. From Boston, Henry Knox wrote to Washington to say New Hampshire would surely follow its neighbor. Knox thought of New Hampshire as a stronghold for Federalists, who supported the document.

It had to happen, Washington thought. The current government created under the Articles of Confederation was in chaos. The new country had huge war debts and no way to pay them. And often, enough congressmen didn’t show up to make a quorum, so they couldn’t conduct daily business.

Meanwhile, two of the biggest and most powerful states, New York and Virginia, quarreled bitterly over the Constitution. Rhode Island had no intention of ratifying it. Washington realized if New Hampshire didn’t ratify the Constitution, the country probably wouldn’t have one.

Then the devastating news arrived: New Hampshire’s constitutional convention adjourned after nine days on February 22 — without ratification.

John Langdon

Founding Father John Langdon

John Langdon, politician and Portsmouth merchant, had gotten very rich in international trade. An early revolutionary, he built a grand Georgian mansion that Washington later visited.

Despite their friendship, John Langdon helped Ona Judge Staines evade Washington’s nephew when he came to New Hampshire. The nephew wanted to bring her back as Martha Washington’s slave.

Like the other Portsmouth shipping merchants, John Langdon ardently supported the Constitution. He thought a stronger national government would protect and expand American commerce.

But Langdon understood something outsiders didn’t. Most New Hampshire people lived inland from New Hampshire’s 18-mile coastline. They didn’t expect to benefit from maritime commerce, nor did they like coastal merchants. They opposed the Federalists, because they feared a central government would concentrate power and destroy democracy.

The Massachusetts Constitutional Convention

Delegates to the Constitutional Convention finished in Philadelphia in September 1787. Nine of 13 states had to approve the document for it to take effect. By the time Massachusetts got around to its Constitutional Convention on Jan. 9, 1788, Delaware, New Jersey, Georgia, Connecticut and Pennsylvania (though only barely) had ratified.

The Old State House in Boston today..

The Massachusetts delegates argued for days inside the Old State House in Boston. Washington kept tabs on developments. “We are locked in ice,” he wrote John Jay on Jan. 20, 1788.

Gov. John Hancock had stayed away with gout, but when he finally arrived at the Constitutional Convention he had a proposal. Hancock suggested Massachusetts recommend a bill of rights. When Sam Adams supported Hancock, Massachusetts ratified the Constitution on Feb. 3, 1788.

New Hampshire’s Constitutional Convention would follow in just 10 days.

John Sullivan

John Sullivan by A. Tenney

New Hampshire Gov. John Sullivan was a canny politician who knew the western part of the state wouldn’t vote to ratify the Constitution.

He was the son of an Irish schoolmaster and his wife who immigrated to America. Born in Somersworth, N.H., he practiced law in Durham, N.H., and formed a friendship with Gov. John Wentworth.

But then Sullivan turned away from Wentworth in the run-up to the Revolution. Along with John Langdon, he became a delegate to the Continental Congress. When war broke out, Sullivan received a commission as a brigadier general.

For five years after the war ended, either John Langdon or John Sullivan served as governor of New Hampshire.

Sullivan supported ratification, and he tried political trickery to get it. He called a meeting of the state Legislature in January 1788, when winter roads made it hard for westerners and northerners to travel to Exeter. The largely Federalist Legislature agreed to hold the Constitutional Convention in February, when snow and ice still blocked the roads.

But Sullivan’s maneuvering didn’t work. Nor did a pro-ratification propaganda campaign that included ministers preaching supportive sermons. While Washington watched from Mount Vernon, strong opposition broke up New Hampshire’s Constitutional Convention after nine days.

The surprising development did huge damage to the cause. New York’s governor, George Clinton came out as an ardent opponent of the Constitution. Opposition also gained steam in Pennsylvania and Virginia.

But then Maryland ratified the Constitution in April, South Carolina in May. So Langdon and Sullivan decided to try again in June.

Vote Counting

Sullivan and Langdon had counted votes carefully. They persuaded four Federalists to stay away from the Constitutional Convention because their towns bound them to oppose ratification.

Old North Meeting House, destroyed in 1870

Ninety of the 113 delegates showed up on the first day, June 18, 1788, at Concord’s Old North Meeting House. By the second day, 107 delegates were present. Pierce Long, a Portsmouth delegate, described ‘dry arguments gone over again’ that left both sides tired out.

When Maj. Joseph Kimball of Plainfield, a supporter, arrived on the third day, Langdon and Sullivan decided to go for it. They knew four of the five still-absent delegates opposed ratification, and they might show up at any moment.

Since proposed amendments had won the day in Massachusetts, John Langdon headed a committee to propose New Hampshire’s own amendments. They were the same as those in Massachusetts, but New Hampshire added three: there was to be no quartering soldiers in private houses; no laws touching religion; no disarming of citizens unless they’d been in actual rebellion.

Then Joshua Atherton, a former Loyalist from Amherst, made a motion. He wanted the Constitution to take effect only with the amendments. He strongly opposed the Constitution because it endorsed slavery.

Samuel Livermore, a Federalist from Holderness, moved that the amendments not be a condition of ratification. He won.

Then Atherton sent fear into the hearts of the Federalists. He moved to adjourn.

Atherton lost. The vote would take place the next day.

On June 21, 1788, the clerk took the yeas and nays. Ratification of the Constitution passed by the surprising margin of 57-47. The amendments had done it.

The Constitution was now the law of the land. New Hampshire had put it over the top and, in the process, become the ninth state in the republic.

Aftermath

Virginia and New York had yet to ratify the Constitution, however. Could the Republic stand without those two large important states as part of it? Four days later, Virginia ratified the Constitution. New York would follow in a month.

News traveled slowly in those days. Virginia was already celebrating its own ratification with cannon fire, banquets and toasts. Then an express rider arrived at Mount Vernon before dawn with the surprising news that New Hampshire had ratified the Constitution.

George Washington attended a stag dinner at John Wise’s Fountain Tavern to celebrate. He was greeted outside the tavern with the fire of 10 cannon and 10 toasts, to celebrate the 10 new states.

He rejoiced at the decision ‘by the People of this great Country to preserve the Union–establish good order & government — and render the Nation happy at home & respected abroad.’

This story about New Hampshire’s constitutional convention was updated in 2023.

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Six Covered Bridges

Covered bridges have been around since the late 18^th century in the United States.

Uncovered bridges had short lifespans of about 15 to 20 years. So people started to cover them to protect the timbers underneath from the wind, rain, and snow.

Today covered bridges are more about rural charm than practicality.

Pennsylvania, Ohio, and Indiana each has more covered bridges than any New England state, according to the National Society for the Preservation of Covered Bridges.. Pennsylvania, with 219, has the most. But Vermont can claim the densest concentration of the old timbered structures, with 106.

New Hampshire once had close to 400 covered bridges, but that number has dwindled to 54. Rhode Island is the only New England state with fewer than eight covered bridges, with but one.

Here, then, are six covered bridges, one in each state. If you know of a covered bridge worth mentioning, please include it in the comments section.

West Cornwall Covered Bridge

There are about 90 covered bridges in Connecticut, where Ithiel Town invented the lattice truss in 1820. His design used latticework to carry a bridge’s load and allowed unskilled workers to build covered bridges quickly with local materials. Town, by the way, also designed the Wadsworth Athenaeum in Hartford and Trinity Church on the Green in New Haven.

In 1864, the current incarnation of the West Cornwall Covered Bridge was built of red spruce and held together with wooden pegs. It’s one of the oldest covered bridges in the country. The key to its longevity was Town’s lattice truss design – and some heavy metal later in its life.

As more and more automobiles and trucks crossed the bridge, the West Cornwall Covered Bridge was closed to pedestrian traffic in the 1920s. In 1945, an oil truck weighing 20 tons fell through the bottom of the bridge. The State of Connecticut decided to replace the bridge in 1968, but a local group persuaded the state to save the bridge. Connecticut built a steel support deck that saved the bridge and won a Federal Highway Administration award.

It wasn’t painted red until 1957, which gave it iconic status. The bridge is featured in the opening scenes of the 1967 film Valley of the Dolls.

The bridge carries the Sharon-Goshen Turnpike (now Rte 128) over the Housatonic River in West Cornwall.

Sunday River Bridge or Artist’s Bridge

Maine once had 120 covered bridges, but fire, flood, development and the great freshet of 1896 reduced their number to eight.

Artist’s Bridge dates to 1872, deep in Maine’s back country on Sunday River Road in Newry. Some say the name of the bridge reflects its position as Maine’s most photographed and painted covered bridge. Other suggest plein air master painter John Enneking gave the bridge its name because he painted it so often. Locals then started calling it Artist’s Bridge.

Since then, artists may have put more paint on their canvases to illustrate the bridge than peoole ever put on its sides.

The Artist’s Bridge is northeast of the Sunday River Ski Resort, next to the crossing of the Sunday River by Sunday River Road.

Burkeville Covered Bridge

Timothy Palmer built Massachusetts’ first covered bridge in Amesbury in 1792, though it didn’t get its roof until 1810. Timber covered bridges were revived in the second half of the 20^th century, and a handful of ‘Massachusetts Modern’ covered bridges replaced historic wooden bridges that couldn’t be saved.

The Burkeville Covered Bridge in Conway is one of the oldest surviving covered bridges in the United States, having been built in 1870. It’s 107 feet long and considered a fine example of state-of-the-art wooden bridge building of the era.

A flood washed away the previous bridge. The roof caved in under a heavy load of snow in 1975, but volunteers restored it. In 1985, the Burkeville Covered Bridge was closed for safety reasons, but renovated and opened to vehicles in 2013. It is located on Main Poland Road just off of Route 116 in Conway.

The bridge is beloved in Conway, where it has been the site of fundraising dinners, memorial services and weddings (not to mention wedding photos).

Honeymoon Bridge

Think a bridge can’t be romantic? Think again. The Honeymoon Bridge in Jackson, N.H., got its name because so many couples share a kiss in front of it — and take photographs of themselves doing so.

The bridge dates to 1876 when Union Army Sgt. Charles Austin Broughton and his son Frank built it to access their dairy farm on Route 16A. Broughton was land agent for the Swift River Lumber Company in Albany, New Hampshire, an avid bear hunter, an accomplished fiddler, and a carpenter. Today the bridge ranks as one of the most photographed — and photogenic — covered bridges in New England.

The Honeymoon Bridge carries Village Street over the Ellis River in Jackson.

(Thanks to New Hampshire Covered Bridges by Richard Marshall.)

Swamp Meadow Covered Bridge

Rhode Island has but one covered bridge on a public road: The Swamp Meadow Covered Bridge in Foster, R.I.

Foster proposed building a covered bridge in honor of Rhode Island’s 350th anniversary in 1986. Volunteers began building the bridge in September 1992, using an Ithiel Town lattice truss on top of an existing steel bridge. The bridge was dedicated in May 1993, but vandals burned it four months later. The Foster Town Council immediately voted to rebuild it, and it was dedicated on Nov. 5, 1994.

The Swamp Meadow Covered Bridge, in the rural northwest corner of the state, crosses Hemlock Brook on Central Pike.

Mount Orne Bridge

Dating to at least the 1870s, the Mount Orne Bridge was built in the days when people could make money charging tolls to cross covered bridges.

The Union Bridge Company operated the span as a link between River Road in Lunenberg, Vt., and Elm Street in Lancaster N.H., until a log jam wiped it out in 1908. Thereafter the two towns rebuilt it.

The Mount Orne Bridge enjoyed a small spot of notoriety in 1969 when a fully loaded salt truck tried to test its limits and plunged through the bridge deck. The truck was a sight, with its rear-end caught on the bridge and its nose resting on the frozen river below. Fast-acting rescuers dislodged it and scooted it off to the shore before the salt that spilled from the truck could melt through the ice and plunge it into the river.

The Mount Orne Bridge joins Elm Street (N.H. Rte. 135 in South Lancaster) with River Road (Town Highway 1) in Lunenberg.

Images: West Cornwall Covered Bridge, The George F. Landegger Collection of Connecticut Photographs in the Carol M. Highsmith’s America, Library of Congress, Prints and Photographs Division.; Forms part of: George F. Landegger Collection of Connecticut Photographs in Carol M. Highsmith’s America Project in the Carol M. Highsmith Archive.; Gift; George F. Landegger; 2011; (DLC/PP-2011:166). Sunday River Bridge, By Magicpiano – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=33815556; Burkeville Covered Bridge, By John Phelan – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=52272138; Mount Orne Covered Bridge, By Denimadept – Own work, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=2609551

This story was updated in 2023.

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